Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Pasadenan Enters Mortuary, Drinks Poison, Falls Dead

May 31, 1947Pasadena

Mrs. Vida Dell, employed by Ives & Warren Mortuary at 100 N. Hill Ave., is used to dealing with the dead and the bereaved. But she wasn't prepared for today's frugal visitor, Joseph Arthur Rawles, who apparently saw no point in incuring the cost of two rides in a hearse.

The 70-year-old jewelry store worker, despondent over poor health and fading eyesight, entered the mortuary, tapped on the office glass to get Mrs. Dell's attention, then drank from a bottle of poison and collapsed. A note on his body explained Rawles' reasons. The deceased lived at 650. N. Madison Ave.

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Somber skies graywith mourning made a requiemof Memorial Day in the South-land yesterday and in theparks and cemeteries and stadia the prayers of men seemed said on beads of un-certainty.

In the multiplicity of services conducted amid the sidewalkclatter of the city and on the verdant rolling lawns through-out the countryside there seeped, with mist and gentle rain, the solemn aftermath of doubt.

The speakers in uniform and out talked not only of the mem-ory of those who have died holding high the ideal of liberty but also of atomic war to come,of foes with spears of hatred pointing at America, of the thinthread of faith that ties us to our heritage.

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Memorial Day, 1947, was a spectacle marked with a parade from Westwood to the veterans cemetery, services for Spanish-American veterans in Pershing Square and even a tribute at Hollywood Memorial Park to 21 Times employees killed in the 1910 bombing, as well as those who died in World War II (Tommy Treanor, RIP).

The largest gathering was at the Coliseum, where the multitudes sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” recited the Pledge of Allegiance and listened to Ronald Reagan read the Gettysburg Address.

But one staple of patriotic gatherings in Los Angeles was missing. Col. Robert A. Bringham, manager of the veterans facility, noted sadly that this was the first Memorial Day service in the history of the institution without a single survivor of the Civil War.

The Times reported that with the death of Herbert Mingay, 100, of New York’s Fighting 69th the month before, there were five Grand Army of the Republic members left in Los Angeles:

As late as the 1930s, the GAR members met twice a week at Patriotic Hall, 1816 S. Figueroa, with annual trips to encampments. There were frequent newspaper stories about the Last Man Club and visiting veterans reminisced about seeing Lincoln or standing guard duty. In 1952, The Times took a picture of Story, in his uniform, examining an early television set.

By 1947, the survivors were growing frail. Of the five, Wolcott and Ebersole died that year, Getter died in 1949 at 100 and Chappell—who remained fairly active late in life—died in 1950 at 102. When Story died in 1952 at the age of 107, he left William Allen Magee, who somehow missed The Times previous tally, as the lone survivor.

But Magee never knew he was the last man; nobody told him. “He’ll simply brood,” said his daughter, Isabel Magee, of 14313½ Victory Blvd. in Van Nuys. “And he isn’t strong enough to attend Mr. Story’s funeral.” Magee, who enlisted as a bugler of the 12th Ohio Cavalry at the age of 13, died in 1953 at 106.

And while information on Confederate veterans in Los Angeles is more elusive, there was at least one, Sampson Sanders Simmons of 6503 Wilcox Ave., in Bell, who died in 1942 and was buried in Inglewood Cemetery, wrapped in a Confederate flag.

Among the other veterans profiled is Dr. Overton H. Mennet, a visitor to Los Angeles, who described unloading freight cars at Harper’s Ferry, standing guard duty in the snow and sleeping in a bog. A local veteran, Dr. John W. Dill, 96, said: “I never killed a man. I was glad to get home from the war.” Of the then-impending war in Europe, Dill said: “It’s all too mixed up.” (Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1940) Dill died at 102 and is buried in Inglewood. (Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1945)